Ben Affleck — who knows a thing or two about flops given his latest streaming movie was Deep Water — threw shade at Netflix for prioritizing quantity over quality when it comes to their original movies.
Yesterday (Nov. 30), the Justice League actor participated in a Q&A at the New York Times DealBook Summit, where he claimed his new studio Artist Equity — where he serves as the CEO, alongside Matt Damon as CCO — will be focused on making “good” movies that “people remember 20 years later,” Deadline reports.
To make further his point, he brought Netflix’s CEO into the conversation. Affleck said, “If you ask Reed Hastings … I’m sure there’s some risk in that, and I’m sure they had a great strategy, but I would have said, ‘How are we going to make 50 great movies?! How is that possible?'”
He continued, “There’s no committee big enough. There aren’t enough — you just can’t do it. It’s a thing that requires attention and dedication and work and resists the assembly line process.”
And Affleck, unfortunately, is not far from the truth. Back in May, it was announced that Netflix would release 80 original films in 2022, whereas a list on Wikipedia shows that the streamer has 175 films lined up for this year (16 still awaiting release), not including documentaries.
This list ranged from well-received titles, such as The Swimmers, Hustle and The Good Nurse, to others with poor reception, like The Bubble, Slumberland and Spiderhead. However, a majority of the list sits comfortably in the middle (according to scores accumulated by Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes), with divisive titles like Blonde, The Gray Man and Luckiest Girl Alive.
Affleck said his company will balance demand with creativity integrity, saying he understands that there’s a “bigger audience for action movies than there is for small dramas.” He explained, “Certain genres play more broadly and you can’t not be mindful of that. But let’s do a good one, let’s surprise the audience, let’s make them care about it.”
Echoing his thoughts, his investment partner Gerry Cardinale teased, “The first wave of streaming was about volume. The second wave is about quality.”
Affleck and Damon’s Artist Equity hopes to release three projects in 2023, including a sports drama about the creation of Air Jordans, which will be directed by Affleck and will star Damon, Viola Davis and Jason Bateman. The currently untitled flick is slated for release on Prime Video.
With all this big talk, here’s hoping it’s a hit!
